instrument-a-day 5: brass free reeds


Primitive accordion-style free reeds, made from basswood and strips of brass. They take a LOT of wind to play – I almost passed out while recording the soundtrack. I also broke one of them, so I tapped and scraped on the reed instead of blowing it.

They have a nice deep tone with a lot of promise, so I hope to work with this technique more. I used this reference while building them.

I didn’t manage to record any video, so the demo video is pretty bland.